Bitter
by Just Black Sugar
Summary: Alone, like a dog, Raph is dying. None is there with him, holding his hand. His family will never see him alive again. Now, it's too late. It's bitter. Warnings: character's death.


Hi! Sugar is here with her first death-fic! ^^ I really hope you all will enjoy it :3 This is for my dear friend Rose Black Dragon! See, Rose?... Here's the fic about Raph I promised you a long time ago! ;) Seriously, dudes, I wrote it something like...three months ago! And I didn't translate it in English for laziness... Hahaha! Leo would lecture me if he could hear that!

Leo: You know that I'm right behind you, don't you?...

Sugar: *turns off with eyes open wide* You...you...oh shell!

Anyway, here you go ^^ But before, I have to give a big hug to Raph's Fallen Angel. Thank you for everything, sister!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

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><p>Bitter. It wasn't sad, or painful, or tragic. It was simply bitter. Dying in that way, alone, like a dog, with only the stars watching at his bedside from the top of that sky moist with tears. It was bitter.<p>

Raph knew that day would have come. He knew that very probably he would have been the first to die. It was obvious, wasn't it?... He was the hot-head, the one who always risked his life. He went out in the night without saying anything to someone, he got himself into dangerous situations only because he let the anger guide him. Yet, he never thought it would have finished in that way. None was there to listen his last breathes, none would have seen him dying. He would have gone alone.

The hot blood went out of the wound in the stomach, impregnating his hands and the ground, coloring them with red of the life which was sliding away. The pain was terrible, almost unbearable. Small drops of rain fell of the sky, like a soft, limited crying, which however didn't hide its grief.

Raph breathed with difficulty, his lungs heavy like two boulders.

He always wondered what was death's taste... Well, now he knew it. His mouth was impregnated with it. Bitter. It was a strong taste. The last his tongue would have ever felt.

The thought made him open his eyes suddenly. Misted shadows of buildings and street lamps present themselves to his amber eyes dirty with blood. He would have never eaten something anymore. He would have never walked anymore. He would have never smelt the smell of the spring and the winter anymore. He would have never trained with his brothers anymore. He would have never seen his family anymore... They would have found him the next morning. Or better, the wouldn't have found him, but his body. His cold body. The crimson blood encrusted around the deep wound in his stomach. The eyes closed forever, hiding an absent looking, which would have never grazed the world anymore.

Suddenly, Raph wished he could give a last good bye to his family. He would have said to Mikey that he loved him, even if his pranks drove him crazy. He would have thanked Don for helping him to repair his bike. He would have said to Leo that he was such a great older brother. He would have said to Master Splinter that his meditation exercises had helped him to control his bad temperament.

But he couldn't. He couldn't. He would have never talked to his family anymore... It was bitter.

Raph blinked, trying to ignore the burning pain in his stomach. His agony was slow. Slow and very painful. But Raph was accustomed to support pain. It wasn't the thing which made him worry. Rather, he wished he could stop thinking. Stop reflecting about what he was leaving, what he would have lost...

Dying at 18 years old, with still all the life to live, was bitter. Very bitter. Maybe, even too much...

Some street lamps turned off. The sky was becoming more bright.

Raph felt a shiver along the shoulder. He was cold. The tongue sticked to the palate. The hands sticky. The knife burning like a fire blade.

It wasn't raining anymore. Maybe even the sky, yet so boundless, had finished the tears. Or maybe he had understood that crying for Raph wasn't worth-while...

The red masked ninja found himself wondering if there was Heaven. Or Hell. Or both. He had never thought about that before... Never he had turned a thought to Heaven... Never. Or better, no, he had once...two months ago.

FLASHBACK

_"Don, how's he?" Leo asks, fear in his eyes._

_Don bites his lip, as he monitors Mikey's weak heartbeats, too weak..._

_"Leo, I... I did everything I could do, but... I don't think he's going through this"_

_The genius's words shatters the air, heavy and painful. The silence of incredulity follows them, a silence that seems to be out of the time, it lasts seconds but it seems to last years._

_"No!"_

_Raph's voice resounds like a boom, while he approaches to his baby brother lying on the stretcher and holds tightly his hand. He swallows the tears that menace to go out of his eyes and speaks firmly._

_"He'll go through this. He'll do it. I know he can"_

_Raph hears Don and Leo sighing, but he doesn't look at them. He continues to stare at Mikey, his pale face, the bandages dirty with blood on the chest, where two swords hit him, running his right lung through and almost cutting of the aorta. His conditions are critical. The heartbeat is weak... Don has said that, if within few minutes it doesn't grow, they will lose Mikey. No. It can't happen. It mustn't happen._

_'Please, God. If you does exist, please save Mikey'_

_The thought goes through Raph's mind even before he could understand what he's thinking. Now, the only one who can help him is God._

_'Please, God. I know... I know I've never prayed you, or even believed in you, but... Mikey hasn't any faults. He's young, happy, full of life... Save him, don't take him. I promise you that...that I won't ask you something again, just...save him. I... I offer you my life... Make me die whenever you want, wherever you want, in the way you want, but please, please, I'm begging you, save Mikey...'_

_Other minutes passes, and Mikey's heart goes slower and slower... Raph holds his little brother's hand, like a shipwrecked person in the middle of the ocean who holds the wooden board which keeps him afloat._

_'Please, God, please... Take me instead of him...'_

_Suddenly, the "bip-bip" noise of the machine to which Mikey's heart is linked becomes faster...more regular..._

_"Guys, he's going through this!" Don exclaims, while tears of happiness wet his face._

_Raph smiles, still holding back the tears._

_Mikey's eyes open slowly, the first things they see are his older sibling's amber eyes._

_"What...what happened?" his voice is hoarse, weak._

_Raph fondles his forehead, with a sweetness that he rarely shows._

_"You have been injured, Mikey... But now everything's okay. Everything is gonna be okay"_

END OF FLASHBACK

The sun was rising... Everything was becoming brighter.

Raph felt the strength leaving him, his heart slackening... The feeling of cold was disappearing, leaving its place to a strange torpor. The pain too was gone. It was time. He wouldn't have seen a light, heard someone's voice greeting him from the other world, no. He wasn't in a movie. He was in the reality. And in that reality, none was holding his hand, giving him the last goodbye. Alone like a dog, he was dying.

Raph smiled, that bitter taste still in his mouth.

He closed his eyes...breathed one's last...then his heart stopped pumping the blood, slowly, gently... And Raph left that world forever.

It was bitter.

THE END


End file.
